Golf club shaft

ABSTRACT

A golf club shaft having adjustability features, made as a composite device whose shaft members are connected by their adjacent faces having a tapered nature by which a wedging action is achieved by their assembly. The adjustability is particularly advantageous in the market situation by which the golf clubs are conventionally sold by the manufacturer for intended modification or custom-fitting by the person or business which tailors the club&#39;s shaft to the precise needs of the golfing customer. The easy assembly achieves a firm and positive holding together the shaft members, achieving desired variations in the club characteristics of length, weight and swing-effect, etc.

I. FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to golf equipment.

[0002] More particularly, the invention relates to the shaft of a golfclub, its concepts of construction and procedure.

II. PROBLEMS INHERENT AS TO THE PROVISIONS OF A GOLF CLUB SHAFT

[0003] Several inherent particulars relating to golf club shafts provideproblems which must be solved to make any particular overallconstruction of a golf club shaft desirable.

[0004] For example, it must be satisfactory as to length in themanufacturing procedure, both as to its length when sold to a club makerand as to the procedure of custom-making by the golf club seller, forgolf clubs are conventionally sold by the manufacturer for intendedmodification or custom-fitting by the person or business which tailorsthe club's shaft to the precise needs of the golfing customer.

[0005] Other characteristics of the golf club shaft must also be takeninto consideration as to both a satisfactory shaft in both salessituations, i.e., the shaft as originally manufactured, and as to theshaft which is custom-made or fitted to the particular golfer as theultimate user.

[0006] It seems to be well known that the best golf club for aparticular user depends on several factors, e.g., length, adaptabilityto carry a desired “grip” body, overall weight of the club, adaptabilityto receive a hosel or other connection member of the shaft to the club'shead member, flexure details as to both the shaft as considered to bebeam and the shaft as considered from its characteristics of torsion, adesirable “feel” of the overall golf club to a particular user and otherfactors of subjective desire to the user, must be quite accurate andvery precise in construction for achieving accuracy of effect, a highdegree of accuracy to consistently and confidently achieve the intendedpurpose as to the shaft's carry of the handle, handle grip body, andhead member, adaptability to utilize differing materials and/orcombination of differing materials, etc.

[0007] The club shaft must desirably have enough reasonableness of looksand feel as to give the user maximum confidence, even though this factoris so subjective to the particular user as to make it a matter of someuncertainty as to any of the several particulars of club design.

[0008] Moreover, the matter of confidence in use seems to be such afanciful and illusive factor that even skilled golfers disagree withothers, and even disagree with their own selves, from time to time, asto the help which individual characteristics of the club shaft actuallyare and contribute to the overall achievement.

[0009] As a practical matter, the club shaft design has to be inrealization of the fact that, for confidence or whatever other attributethe club shaft itself seems to convey, the characteristics which areboth visible and “feelable” to the user must be such as to impress theuser as a potential purchaser and contribute to the user's subsequentuse of the shaft in the actualities of practice and of the challenge ofthe golf play itself.

III. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0010] In the preferred form of this invention, its concepts maylogically be considered to partake of concepts to both the device andprocedure for making the device.

[0011] That is, as considering as to both aspects, the invention may besummarized to be a club shaft comprised of shafts which are assembledcoaxially into a composite assembly with the shafts being formed of arelated size and nature, adjustably related, so that a very rigid andlong-lasting holding is maintained in the adjusted position of the twoshafts by the achievement of a wedging action.

[0012] The holding effect permits the use of a non-special bondingsubstance, and permits adjustability by club professionals by cuttingoff a portion of the inner shaft component and/or varying its position,and to satisfactorily bend the club shaft to the accommodation ofvariations or irregularities in the club head or hosel, and provides theuser the options of variations in overall club length, variations inoverall weight distribution, variations in “flex (flexure) point”, andone or more other characteristics referred to as “kick point”, “balancepoint”, toward the goal of accuracy in use of an associated ball ofball-flight characteristics such as “launch angle”, “ball spin rate”,etc.

[0013] Other features and details are set forth herein.

IV. PRIOR ART CAPABILITY AND MOTIVATIONS, AS HELPING TO SHOWPATENTABILITY HERE

[0014] In hindsight consideration of the present invention to determineits inventive and novel nature, it is not only conceded but emphasizedthat the prior art had details usable in this invention, but only if theprior art had had the guidance of the present concepts of the presentinvention, details of both capability and motivation.

[0015] That is, it is emphasized that the prior art had or knew severalparticulars which individually and accumulatively help to show thenon-obviousness of this combination inventionn. E.g.,

[0016] a. The prior art has had several decades of invention anddevelopment of club shafts, and the countless attempts and improvementhave been made; and a showing of the energetic developing activitythrough the years is shown merely by the many shafts advertisedcommercially, most claiming a specitic one or more improvements, such asto a material from which a shaft is made, consistency of shaft naturealong various portions of the shaft, attempts to utilize flexurecharacteristic (both as a beam and as to torsion nature) of variousportions of the shaft, etc.;

[0017] b. Such a huge number of variations of these club shaft deviceshelp to show that the novelty here is to be considered as inventive, forthey show that this may be considered as quite a “crowded art”; andespecially is this consideration logical when it is noted that clubshafts are such “simple” things from the standpoint of their simplicityof construction;

[0018] c. More particularly, club shafts may be considered simply assimple tools having no moving parts and all portions extending in astraight line, and yet through the years the inventive minds have soughtto create the ideal club shaft by developments relating to the mostminute construction features of club shafts, and each of the many clubshaft features mentioned herein;

[0019] d. All of the various attempts and changes illustrate not onlythe attempts but the unique problems of club shaft design; and all ofthe efforts to make the “ideal” club shaft are realistically encumberedby the fact that no one seems to know for sure what is the criticalfactor or factors involved;

[0020] e. The increasing growth of golf as a pastime has shown thatthere are an increasing number of persons and manufacturers who would besupposed to be quite willing to deal in club shaft improvements;

[0021] f. The relative simplicity of club shafts, as an item ofconstruction, has surely given manufacturers ample incentive to havemade modifications for commercial competitiveness in a competitiveindustry with huge sales prospects reasonably expectable;

[0022] g. The prior art has always had sufficient skill to make manytypes of club shafts, more than ample skill to have-achieved the presentinvention, but only if the concepts and their combinations had beenconceived;

[0023] h. Substantially all of the operational characteristics andadvantages of details of the present invention, when consideredseparately from one another and when considered separately from thepresent invention's details and accomplishment of the details, arewithin the skill of persons of various arts, but only when consideredaway from the integrated and novel combination of concepts which bytheir cooperative combination achieves this advantageous invention;

[0024] i. The details of the present invention, when considered solelyfrom the standpoint of construction, are relatively simple, and thematter of simplicity of construction has long been recognized asindicative of inventive creativity;

[0025] j. The prior art has shown that it is willing to use andundertake developments of various factors of club shaft design;

[0026] k, Similarly, and a long-recognized indication of inventivenessof a novel combination, is the realistic principle that a person ofordinary skill in the art, as illustrated with respect to the claimedcombination as differing in the stated respects from the prior art bothas to construction and concept, is that the person of ordinary skill inthe art is presumed to be one who thinks along the line of conventionalwisdom in the art and is not one who undertakes to innovate;

[0027] l. The prior art has long had mechanisms and production equipmentof various kinds which could produce all of the particulars of thepresent invention;

[0028] m. With increasing intensity of golf as a universal pastime, andwith the likelihood that huge sales and profits may be expected by theadvertising of club-sets as containing clubs whose shafts will help theuser's scoring ability;

[0029] n. The cost of manufacture of a club shaft is sufficiently low asto be within the marketability or supposed-marketability in thisaggressive industry;

[0030] o. It is generally believed that many or most golfers are personsof pride or hopeful pride in their golfing skills, and the matter of animproved club shaft would be particularly an incentive to purchase; and

[0031] p. Accordingly, although the prior art has had capability andmotivation, amply sufficient to presumably give incentive to thedevelopment of specialized club shafts according to the presentinvention, the fact remains that the present invention awaited thecreativity and inventive discovery of the present inventor. In spite ofample motivation and capability shown by the illustrations herein, theprior art did not suggest this invention.

V. SUMMARY OF PRIOR ART'S LACK OF SHOWING OR SUGGESTING THE INVENTIVECONCEPTS

[0032] And the existence of such prior art knowledge and relatedarticles embodying such various features is not only conceded, it isemphasized; for as to the novelty here of the combination and of theinvention as considered as a whole, a contrast to the prior art helpsalso to remind both the great variety of the various prior art articlesand the needed attempts of improvement, and of the advantages and theinventive significance of the present concepts. Thus, as shown herein asa contrast to all the prior art, the inventive significance of thepresent concepts as a combination is emphasized and the nature of theconcepts and their results can perhaps be easier understood.

[0033] Although varieties of prior art are conceded, and amplemotivation is shown and full capability in the prior art is conceded, noprior art shows or suggests details of the overall combination of thepresent invention, as is the proper and accepted way of considering theinventiveness nature of the concepts.

[0034] That is, although the prior art may show an approach to theoverall invention, it is determinatively significant that none of theprior art shows the novel and advantageous concepts in combination,which provides the merits of this invention, even though certain detailsare shown separately from this accomplishment as a combination.

[0035] And the prior art's lack of an invention of a combination deviceachieving the combination of confident feel and accuracy in use, andother advantages of the present invention, which are goals onlyapproached by the prior art, must be recognized as showing a long-feltneed fulfilled.

[0036] Accordingly, the various concepts and components are conceded andemphasized to have been widely known in the prior art as to variousdevices; nevertheless, the prior art not having had the particularcombination of concepts and details as here presented and shown in novelcombination different from the prior art and its suggestions, even onlya fair amount of realistic humility to avoid consideration of thisinvention improperly by hindsight, requires the concepts andachievements here to be realistically viewed as a novel combination,inventive in nature. And especially is this a realistic considerationwhen viewed from the position of a person of ordinary skill in this artat the time of this invention, and without trying to reconstruct thisinvention from the prior art without use of hindsight toward particularsnot suggested by the prior art.

VI. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0037] The above description of the novel and advantageous invention isof somewhat introductory and generalized form. More particular details,concepts and features are set forth in the following and more detaileddescription of the preferred embodiments, taken in conjunction with theaccompanying Drawings which are of somewhat schematic and diagrammaticnature for showing the inventive concepts.

[0038] In the Drawings:

[0039]FIG. 1 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the assembly ofthe inner shaft and outer shaft according to the inventive concepts; and

[0040]FIG. 2 is a transverse cross-sectional view of the assembly shownin FIG. 1, but on much larger scale, generally shown as taken bySection-line 2-2 of FIG. 1.

VII. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

[0041] As shown in the Drawings, the present invention advances thestate of the art of the production of golf club shafts, even though muchof this novel golf club shaft uses prior art; and prior art concepts areshown as integrated with the novel details and features. Thus thisdetailed description includes a description of prior art details andfeatures as background for an understanding of the novel concepts whichcomprise the invention herein.

[0042] The overall invention, as is shown in the Drawings, provides fora golf club shaft a composite of an inner shaft 10 and an outer shaft12, and they are coordinated in a novel nature of details as herein setforth, to provide a base component for a golf club shaft when the twoshafts 10 and 12 are assembled and comprise shaft-stiffening componentswhich are adjustable.

[0043] Of course, the adjustability would not ordinarily be used by theultimate golf-playing customer, but rather by a golf shop owner or othertechnician who adjusts the adjustable details as they have come from themanufacturer.

[0044] Turning now to the construction concepts of the presentinvention, a detail feature which is probably first-noticed is that theinner shaft 10 has a taper at both of its ends; that is, the inner shaft10 has at one end 14 a taper 16, and has at its other end 18 an enlargedportion 20. The enlarged portion 20 has at its outer end 22 a taper 24;and the two tapers 16/24 provide ease of insertion of the inner shaft 10into the outer shaft 12 optionally at either end. This optionality maybe particularly desirable to minimize inventory needs; for stiffness ofthe overall club shaft in an important characteristic, and the locationof the inner shaft 10 with respect to the outer shaft 12 is a mainfactor of adjustability of the overall club stiffness.

[0045] The enlarged portion 20 of the inner shaft 10 provides a blockingabutment limiting the depth to which the inner shaft 10 may bepositioned when the inner shaft 10 is assembled coaxially into the outershaft 12.

[0046] The blocking by the outer shaft 12 against the insertion of theinner shaft end 27 into and through the end 26 of the outer shaft 12, orby engagement of the enlarged portion 20 of the inner shaft 10 againstthe walls 28 of the outer shaft 12, and the relative adjustability ofposition of those components provides a tight gripping of the shafts10/12. That is the adjacent walls of the inner shaft 10 and the outershaft 12 are provided to be of a wedge nature which also provides anaxial tightening of the shafts 10/12 when assembled and holding themagainst relative movement both axially and torsionally, the arrangementthus providing substantial holding of the assembled shafts.

[0047] An important other factor of the taper 24 is that it relieveswhat otherwise would be a sharpness of the shaft end 22, which wouldhave the effect of shortening the life of the assembly by breakage ofthe associated portion of the outer shaft 12.

[0048] The blocking abutment also provides a centering effect of therelative colinearity of the inner shaft 10 and outer shaft 12 when theyare assembled.

[0049] The outer shaft 12's first portion 26 and second portion 28 areshown as integral portions of the outer shaft 12. The first portion 26of the outer shaft 12 is a relatively small inside diameter such thatthe inner shaft 10 will slide within the outer shaft 12 when the innershaft 10 is coaxially assembled into the outer shaft 12.

[0050] The outer shaft 12 has a second portion 28 with an insidediameter such that it slidably receives the enlarged portion 20 of theinner shaft 10 when the two shafts 10/12 are assembled in a colineararrangement.

[0051] The second portion 28 of the outer shaft 12 is provided with ataper 30 at its end adjacent the first portion 26 of the outer shaft 12,the taper 30 providing the enlargement between the outer shaft 12 at itsfirst portion 26 and the second portion 28 of the outer shaft 12, andalso providing centering effect for colinearity of the inner shaft 10and outer shaft 12 when assembled.

[0052] The inner shaft 10 has its first portion 32 and a second portion34, the first portion 32 of the inner shaft 10 being of a relativelysmall outside diameter such that the inner shaft 10 will slide withinthe outer shaft 12 when the inner shaft 10 is coaxially assembled intothe outer shaft 12.

[0053] The enlarged portion 20 of the inner shaft 10 is provided with ataper 36 at its end which is opposite the end 18/22 of the outer shaft12, the taper 36 providing the enlargement between the inner shaft 10'sportion 27 and the second portion 28 of the outer shaft 12.

[0054] The taper 36 provides a shoulder which is the portion of theinner shaft 10 which comes into abutment with the taper portion 26 ofthe outer shaft 12 in a sort of wedging action which retains theassembled state of the shafts 10/12. The tightness of that wedgingaction holds the assembled state of the shafts 10/12 sufficiently thatlittle or no bonding substance need be applied; and even if bondingsubstance is used, it need not be of any special formulation.

1. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising, incombination: an inner shaft and an outer shaft, the inner shaft havingat one end a taper, and having at its other end an enlarged portion, theenlarged portion having at its outer end a taper, the two tapersproviding ease of insertion of the inner shaft into the outer shaftoptionally at either end.
 2. A composite golf club shaft of circularcross-section, comprising, in combination: an inner shaft and an outershaft; the inner shaft having at one end an enlarged portion; theenlarged portion of the inner shaft providing a blocking abutmentlimiting the depth to which the inner shaft may be positioned when theinner shaft is assembled coaxially into the outer shaft, the blockingabutment also providing a centering effect of the relative colinearityof the inner shaft and outer shaft when they are assembled.
 3. Theinvention as set forth in claim 2, in a combination in which the innershaft has a taper on one end and a taper on the other end.
 4. Acomposite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising incombination: an inner shaft and an outer shaft; the outer shaft having afirst portion and a second portion, the first portion of the outer shaftbeing of a relatively small inside diameter such that the inner shaftwill slide within the outer shaft when the inner shaft is coaxiallyassembled into the outer shaft; the outer shaft having a secondportion-with an inside diameter such that it slidably receives theenlarged portion of the inner shaft when the two shafts are assembled ina colinear arrangement.
 5. The invention as set forth in claim 4, in acombination in which the second portion of the outer shaft is providedwith a taper at its end adjacent the first portion of the outer shaft,the taper providing the enlargement between the outer shaft at the firstportion and the second portion of the outer shaft; and also providing acentering effect for colinearity of the inner shaft and outer shaft whenassembled.
 6. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section,comprising, in combination: an inner shaft and an outer shaft; the innershaft having a first portion and a second portion, the first portion ofthe inner shaft being of a relatively small outside diameter such thatthe inner shaft will slide within the outer shaft when the inner shaftis being coaxially assembled into the outer shaft.
 7. The invention asset forth in claim 6, in a combination in which the body portion of theinner shaft is provided with a taper at its end adjacent the firstportion of the inner shaft, the taper providing the enlargement betweenthe inner shaft tip portion and the body portion of the outer shaft. 8.The invention as set forth in claim 2, in combination in which theassembly of the two shafts is made more certain of long time usabilityby a bonding substance whether or not the bonding substance is of aspecialized nature.
 9. A composite golf club shaft of circularcross-section, comprising, in combination: an inner shaft and an outershaft, the inner shaft being adapted to be cut at the the user's optionto any selected length.
 10. The invention as set forth in claim 9, inwhich the end of the inner shaft is of sufficient flexible nature as tobe satisfactorily bendable to about 50 to accommodate variations orirregularities in what has been provided to be the reception hole in theassociated club head or hosel.
 11. A composite golf club shaft ofcircular cross-section, comprising, in combination: an inner shaft andan outer shaft, connection means being provided which provide for theuser the options of variations in overall club length, variations inoverall weight distribution, variations in “flex (flexure) point”, andone or more other characteristics referred to as “kick point”, “balancepoint”, toward the goal of accuracy in use of an associated ball ofball-flight characteristics such as “launch angle”, “ball spin rate”,etc.